AOL has promoted Allie Kline to chief marketing officer, making her responsible for global marketing efforts around the company’s advertising solutions and technology platforms.
“Allie Kline has been a driving force in the growth of AOL’s media, advertising and publisher solutions platforms,” said CEO Tim Armstrong in a statement.
Kline was previously chief marketing officer for AOL’s platforms division under CEO Bob Lord.
The promotion expands her role to include marketing leadership for AOL Advertising, which was previously led by Erika Nardini. Ad Age reported yesterday that Nardini plans to leave the company at the end of the year.
AOL has not had a centralized CMO overseeing both its platform and advertising businesses, since the departure of Jolie Hunt in 2012.
“AOL has seen a rapid shift to programmatic buying, while our clients are still demanding rich audiences. I have witnessed that first-hand,” said Kline in a statement. “AOL has provided a clear vision for where the internet is going and is building for it, from amazing premium and programmatic ad experiences to Emmy award-nominated original video series, and everything in between.”
Before joining AOL in January 2013, Kline was CMO of social sharing and content delivery startup 33 Across. She’s also held executive marketing roles at Brand Affinity Technologies, Launch Ideas and Unicast.
Promoting a marketer from the technology side of AOL’s business may be a sign of its increasing focus on its platforms business. AOL has made a string of tech acquisitions and led the charge in programmatic, recently announcing that 100% of its Canadian ad inventory will be available to programmatic buyers.
As of Q3, technology platforms revenue had eclipsed that of advertising, growing 44% YoY to $271 million quarterly, or 43% of AOL’s total quarterly revenue.
